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Phone Calls from the Long Forgotten
Until your number showed up on my caller ID
I had forgotten your existence.
My memory had you tucked
safely away in the tidy filing cabinets
in the back of my thoughts.
Then the phone rang and you crawled in my ear,
opening envelopes sealed with disgust,
allowing pictures and arguments and sticky note
reminders not to call you
to flood the inside of my clean cranium.
I even found one stuck
to my cheek this morning when I woke.
Thanks for the reminder.
Grandpa's Basement
Open the cool aqua door and step inside.
escape the humidity and chlorine coated air,
instantly flush with the lonely dampness
of that place. Feet dripping heat into the wooden
stairs, as eyes adjust to the darkness.
The air is sweet and soft, reminiscent of
dryer sheets and dust. Descend into the basement
running fingers along the bumpy brick wall,
liquid with lacquered pear paint.
Steel objects hang from its slick surface,
surgically sharp and sneering in the gloom.
Go deeper. The muffled laughter is swallowed
by the distance. In the shadows ahead
something silver and huge is lurking,
Dormant now, powerless in this sunken place.
Creep closer and rest skin against it,
breathing in the faint scent of rosemary,
and dead swine. |
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The Complex Dating Process of a Picky
Woman
I started planning our wedding by the sea in Mexico
after you told me your name.
I had chosen our first home complete with a quality school
system,
by the time you bought me a second drink
When you finally kissed me
we already had 2 ADHD kids and a dog who peed on the carpet.
But on the way home, I tossed your number out the window
because you had died of cancer and our children never call.
Prisms of Memory
The watery brightness tingles in my eyes,
caressing my corneas.
How does the anatomy of light bring such sorrow,
such abruptness?
The vibration of light stenciling silhouettes against my
eyelids,
allowing streams and gullies to fall between that space.
The Arabic hush of whispered prayers
that watch light filter through feathery green foliage,
caught between my humanity and your savage tendencies,
as they linger in the forest
where we left them.
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Guemes Island
Trees root through the solidity of the islands icy walls,
working loose each stone and sending it sliding
into the tumbling tide of Puget Sound.
The wind bit obtrusively into my California skin. How
quickly
I had become vulnerable to these elements in their absence.
Clouds raced towards their next lofty destination,
changing the water from slate to navy to the unmistakable
aqua
of sun rays penetrating deep into the frigid liquid.
Often I missed these windy walks with her,
trading observations and frustrations of life and men.
How oddly wise my mother had become in my absence.
The high tide lapped at out feet, reaching for a taste of
our soles,
muddy with damp earth and fallen leaves.
She tightened her blue Gortex hood as I struggled
to keep my thin summer sweater from flopping in the wind.
Pulling my strings, she blinded me momentarily and we
laughed,
trying to recover my face from the wooly depths.
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